Back to the Future
by TheWhittiePhantom
Summary: Alternate take on "Flashback" Instead of going back in time to seek Eobard's help in manipulating the speedforce, Team Flash travel into the future to talk to him before he knows Barry as The Flash.
1. Chapter 1

**So, Mumble and I graduated. We walked together and everything-*cries. WE ARE MOVING AWAY FROM EACH OTHERAHHHHH**

 **Ahem.**

 **So, this is set post-Trajectory, and will happen as a substitute for the events of "Flash Back," fantastic as that episode was.**

 **Prologue**

 **Central City National Park**

People rarely experience one emotion at a time. Emotions usually function like the slurpee concoction of a little kid who couldn't decide what flavor they wanted-a whole rainbow mess of flavors that were never really meant to go together, swirled together in a sticky mess that never tastes or looks the same way twice. Rarely does a person experience on single emotion, one single flavor, at once.

For the first time in his life, Barry understood what it meant to feel nothing but anger. No sadness, no regret, no twinges of fear, no vestiges of confusion, just anger. Anger at himself letting himself get duped not once, but twice, anger at the rest of his team for not noticing that there was something off about Jay, anger at the world for not gifting him with discernment, and anger at Jay, no, _Zoom,_ for everything that he had done and would continue to do.

It was a few hours until anyone came to get him. He had simply let his red-how fitting-clad feet hang over the side of the canyon after he had more or less lost his voice. Yes, he was angry, but the sheer amount of effort that it took to maintain such an intense level of one of the most damaging emotions one could possess drained him. He sat there until the red haze of anger faded into background noise, where it would remain until justice prevailed, and Zoom was no longer a problem.

It wasn't until the STAR Labs van was halfway back down the mountain with Barry secured in the back with an impromptu seat belt that Caitlin spoke. Although it had been Cisco who had finally traced the GPS signal emanating from the suit, Caitlin had insisted on driving the van to fetch him, something about driving being a help to calm nerves. Cisco and Harry, (who had characteristically invited himself without anyone else's consent,) awkwardly shared the passenger seat. It probably wasn't necessary for all three to come, but sometimes, it felt better to feel foolish and fume as a group.

"What's the plan?" she asked. It wasn't a question. It was a demand for a course of action. "Please don't say, 'Getting faster.'"

Harry started to speak in the contemplative tone that invited no hope, but was simply used for laying out facts. "Here's what we know. We know that Jay is Zoom. We know that V9 is killing him. We know that his endgame is acquiring Barry's speed."

Cisco joined in, easily falling into the listing of Things We Know For Sure, the team's favored way of breaking up facts when brainstorming how to take down metas. "We know that he knows that speed can be stolen, but he can't do it by himself. We know that he can create doubles of himself. We know that he planned to up the speedforce in Barry's system by forcing him to fight metas that were a challenge, but probably wouldn't beat him."

Barry nodded, the movement barely visible from the front. "Okay. We have a name. We have a face, we have motive, we have the outline of his plan, we have eyewitnesses." He rubbed his gloved hands together, and a hint of his usual positive personality started to break through. "This is good. Real good. We have more than most investigative teams have when taking someone to court. Heck, we even have body scans, DNA, full medical write-ups, the works. We just need to stop coming up with one-pronged attacks, and work more than one angle at a time."

"Use the advantage of multiple people," said Harry, warming to the idea. "Do something that Zoom, as one person, can't."

Caitlin raised a single eyebrow. "What do we have that Zoom doesn't, or better yet, doesn't know about?"

 **Star Labs**

See," Joe started, "I thought you had run out of dumb ideas, and somehow, you continue to amaze me."

Cisco lifted his welding mask for a brief second. "Don't worry, Joe. We totally have this down pat from when we did it last year. This model only has more seats!"

Joe looked to Iris for help, but she didn't catch the look as her face was in her hands. As a last resort, Joe looked to Harry for help, only to find the older scientist lugging a box of parts into the cortex. After setting the box down, he threw up his hands. "Yes, I think it is just as asinine as you do. However, this is not my earth, therefore, this is not my future, so it's no sweat on my brow when everything inevitably goes pear-shaped."

"Dad," moaned Jessie, who was alternately eating oreos and examining Rip Hunter's blueprints. "Try to sound like you care."

Harry shrugged, then tossed the canister of volatile nitroglycerin to Barry, who casually caught it with one hand before coming to the rather late conclusion that Harry almost blew him up. "He is protected by the time stream, which gives me hope that no matter what we do, his actions on the timeline will not change. As far as we know, Eobard Thawne is the world's leading expert on the time stream. You don't get to artificially become a speedster without knowing your stuff. He managed to make himself a speedster without a drug."

Barry sputtered. "You almost blew me up!"

"I just don't like you going anywhere near the likes of Eobard Thawne. Around him, people get hurt, and nothing goes like it should. Going to him to ask about how to go faster, to get sparknotes on the speedforce? That won't go well. I don't care if he wouldn't know who you were yet, he's still dangerous. Where Eobard goes, people die."

Everyone except the Wells family stiffened a little at the reminder of Eddie.

"It's fine," Barry tried, attempting to sell the plan to his unwilling audience, both Wests. "It's nice and simple. Build another time ship thingie like the one we built for Eobard, go to the future, before Eobard becomes the Reverse-Flash. We find out where he lives, steal his files on the speedforce, then scoot out of there before anyone notices us."

"Do I even have to tell you how many ways this could explode in our faces? Huh? What if he recognizes you? What if he finds out who you are before he's supposed to? What if you get stranded in the future? What then?"

Barry stood there, stone-faced through Joe's rant. "If we don't take any risks, we don't beat Zoom. Simple as that. He's after speed. Eobard Thawne made himself a speedster, without drugging himself. We need to know how to manipulate the speedforce like that. He has the answers, and he told us himself where to find him. In the future, in the year 2181."

Iris had long since come to the conclusion that there was no talking Barry out of it. She sighed, and added that she would go through all of Harry's files on Zoom, and see if she could find his earth-1 counterpart, or a reason why he didn't have a counterpart.

A few more hours, and the time ship was done. The cupholders and extra seats had been added, and Caitlin had dubbed the contraption, "The Hercules," because if all went according to plan, it could, according to her, "Go the distance." Cisco quickly agreed and wrote the name on the side with sharpie. Upon Joe's insistence, bags with generic clothing had been packed, along with a few days worth of food, calorie bars, and one of the extra flash suits were packed.

It was time. No pun intended.

Harry, who seemed more familiar with the airplane-like controls, sat in the driver's seat. Barry sat next to him, fully outfitted in his flash uniform. Cisco was seated directly behind him, and Caitlin occupied the fourth seat. With barely a moment of hesitation, Harry adjusted a few readouts, and without any fanfare, the timestream swallowed them up.

 **Confession: I always wanted to explore the fact that Eobard Thawne was supposed to be a professor before he became the reverse-flash, and I wanted to write my take on his earlier self. Enjoy!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks to Mumble for looking this over and flat out telling me when things just don't make sense.**

 **-Whitie**

The air tasted like metal.

Later, when Barry retold the story, he would claim that his first thought upon arriving in the future contained awe, wonder, and a hint of disbelief.

Now, though, as he climbed out of the crowded pod, the first random observation that popped into his head was that every intake of oxygen had a metallic aftertaste to it.

Gone were Central's green parks. Gone were the homey brick buildings hunkering down next to skyscrapers, gone were the cars, the planes, the trees, the bushes, and anything green. Teens ran to jump onto hovering cars before the levitating vehicles rushed off to their next stop, adults tapped keys on computers visible to no one but themselves, and the quick-walking businessmen in a rush to their next meeting wore pressed outfits that had the shape of fitted sweatervests but made of suit material.

And yet, there was something undeniably _Central_ about all of it. People still made last minute decisions to grab something to eat on their way to work and kids still laughingly ran ahead of their parents not realizing the distress that they were causing. Groups of people plopped themselves down and sprawled out playfully in a way that the citizens of Starling city had never felt safe enough to do and the citizens of Metropolis simply didn't have enough room to do.

Above all, the city had a lightness to it, a sense of optimism that you could never get anywhere else.

It took Barry a minute to realize that the others had joined him in staring. Luckily, their little pod had landed in an alley, and it only took a quiet command from Harry to camouflage itself. Cisco's eyes were similar to his, round and excited, while Harry's were narrow and assessing. Caitlin looked a little stunned, but once she started to take it all in, her features started to slide back into place, completely under control.

After realizing that their gray sweats would make them look slightly odd, but not badly enough to make them stick out like sore thumbs, the foursome tentatively slipped out onto a sidewalk...that was definitely not made of concrete, and walked in the direction of the rest of the crowd.

"Not that this isn't one of the coolest things that I've ever done, but how are we going to do this? I mean, how are we going to get Dr. Wells, sorry, Eobard, to tell you everything he knows about the speedforce without letting on that you're the Flash?" wondered Cisco.

Barry shrugged. "I guess I could say that I'm..that I'm.."

"You really thought this out, didn't you," muttered Caitlin, without bite.

"I'll say I'm a graduate student, working on a physics paper, who needs a source."

Harry, who had been uncharacteristically silent up until this point, shook his head no. "Asinine. Assuming you find him, you would have to present yourself as someone who is up-to-date on on modern scientific theories. Which, in case you forgot, you aren't. While it's a fantastic plan for getting yourself exposed and killed, it's not a great way to get information out of him."

Barry shrugged. "Fine. I say I'm a history student, doing a paper on Central City's history, and I happened to find the Flash interesting."

Harry's brows were still furrowed. "The more you talk to him, the bigger chance you have of screwing up."

"I can totally bluff."

Cisco winced a little as the words flew out of Barry's mouth. "Bro, I hate to side with Harry on this one, but I've seen you lie."

"Remember Patty, Allen? Mr. 'I love canned stuff'."

Before Harry got punched in the face, Caitlin raised her hand placatingly, wishing that Joe had pressed the idea had having a better plan a little more. "Before anyone starts fighting, we need to know for sure that Eobard doesn't know who we are."

Cisco latched onto the idea right away. "Yes. Thank you. First, we find him. Then, since we know that Eobard knows Harry here and me on sight, one of us gets in his sightline and makes eye contact. If he doesn't react, then the coast is clear. If he does get that serial killer look on his face, then we get the heck out of dodge, 'cause I don't want to die."

Barry brightened, glad to have a plan of action. "Okay. Harry, you find whatever the modern equivalent of a phonebook is here. Cisco, you go with him. Me and Cait can find a way to brush up on anything a history student studying the early 21st century would need to know. Set your watch for an hour."

As soon words finished passing from Barry's lips, the birds went silent. A few moments later, so did everything else. Then came the screaming. Then the running. People shot in every direction in a panicked frenzy, screaming and tripping in terror. It was chaos. Barry tensed, desperately trying to see what was happening, stuck in a fight or flight dilemma.

Caitlin was the first to see it...whatever it was. It looked like a cross between a skeleton and a ghost. Strips of thin bone trailed behind the figure as it rushed from side to side, examining people with empty eyesockets before passing right through them. In short, it was a nightmare. Harry placed a warning hand on Barry's arm, his meaning clear: _Not this fight._

A flash of frustration passed over his face before Barry relaxed and they all bolted for the nearest shelter. The nearest shelter, as it turned out, was a restaurant. The door slid open noiselessly as they ran in, and after a moment of hesitation, they joined the group watching the chaos outside. Now that they were nominally safe, they watched in horrified fascination as the ghost pounded a steel structure to smithereens as it tried to get a better look at the people hiding under it.

A moment later, it was all over. A bolt of lightning slammed into the ghost, the momentum carrying them both several yards before the ghost pushed the smaller figure off. The figure landed on the ground in a crouch, then sprang into action. Barry's speed-enhanced eyes saw a fight whereas everyone else saw a fast moving streak of light. The boy, in a suit that seemed to be a variation on his own, waited for the ghost to jerk forward. He yanked the ghost forward before hitting the ground as the apparitions floated harmlessly over him, propelled by the sudden pull. Pushing his hand directly into the specter's stomach, he vibrated his hand much like Eobard Thawne, effectively dispersing the creature.

To everyone else, the danger was over, the threat had passed.

Barry though, was Flash. It appeared that Central City would always have one.

The young man next to him shook his head. "Man, Prof would have killed to be here."

Caitlin looked at him quizzically. "Is he a fan of, um, him?"

The boy shook his head. "Who, Impulse? I mean, Central loves its speedsters, but Prof would have run out there to ask him questions, floating skeleton or no skeleton. He's obsessed with speed. That, and the original Flash." The boy chuckled. "That's why we call him, 'Professor Zoom.' I swear, if he could teach a class on the physics of The Flash, he totally would."

He had their full attention. It couldn't be. Shakily, Barry asked him one last question. "What your Professor's real name?"

"Professor Eobard Thawne. Why? Have a class with him or something?"


End file.
